Archive for the ‘Newspapers’ category

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Huff Post UK: Piers Morgan, can you hear me?

April 9th, 2009

Right then, I’ll get straight to it:  The UK needs its own Huffington Post, and Piers Morgan is the only man for the job.

Is there any newspaper (online or otherwise) making such good investment in journalism than the Huffington Post? Last week it announced it would be investing $1.75 million in investigative journalism. The new Media Talk USA podcast asks whether Arianna Huffington could be the unlikely savour of the very finest strand of journalism — the investigators.

The Huffington Post is a strange beast. Launching in 2005 as essentially a ‘celebrity blog’, the HuffPo received a lukewarm reaction. Some disagreed with its mission, and others ignored. It was nothing too important — just a load of ego-tripping celebs doing no ‘real’ journalism. Newsweek described its aims as “[to] put heat (and perhaps even shine a little light) on the news of the day through diarylike musings, opinions and links”.

Which, for a good while, it was just that. Blogs, opinion… shouting. All good fun, but it’s no New York Times.

Taking a look at the site today, we can still see hallmarks of its birth, but it has evolved. The main content is still blogs — although for some reason they feel like columnists rather than bloggers, a set up more in keeping with Comment is Free. But it’s now referring to itself as ‘The Internet Newspaper’, dealing with news and video as well as the shouty blogs.

And now it’ll be pumping cash into its own investigations. I can’t wait to see the results — I hope the team can show the mainstream media guys how it’s done. While they’re sweating about re-writing a press release, the HuffPo can get back to the roots of journalism: finding stuff out.

But here’s what kills me: all this Huffington Post talk is very exciting — but it won’t affect me too much. Where is the UK HuffPo? Why don’t we have an online newspaper?

Why aren’t we getting investment for investigative journalism?

So I’m asking you, Piers Morgan. It’s up to you. Call it ‘The Morgan’ if you have to. Grab some friends, some cash, and set up office. Canary Wharf would be nice — you did your finest work there.

I find our lack of a good, well-read online-only newspaper very depressing. And the only thing stopping it is a lack of a big name. Someone who’s mere involvement would get clicks. For the first week — the buzz would be about it being new, but from there on in it’ll be the content that brings them back.

We’re long overdue anything like this. Piers is the only person I know who has the status, the money and, let’s face it, the skill to bring something like this to reality.

Now I know he’s busy with his career as a TV talent show judge/chat show host, but having read Piers’ book, I have a sneaky suspicion that you can take the man out of newspapers, but you can’t take newspapers out of the man. Come on Piers, I know you miss it.

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Posted in Comment, Newspapers, Tabloids, The Future, The Web

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Tipping point: The Big Journalism Bail Out

March 25th, 2009

There was always going to be a tipping point. A moment when a cut back meant no newspaper — rather than just less subs. Or less court reporting. Truth is, a newspaper can’t survive without journalists. Now that serious redundancies are knocking at the door — of the regionals, for now — newspapers face a year of desperation.

In the past six months we’ve jumped from being a throw away society into a bail out society. It was only a matter of time until those over-used words started to get banded about with the newspaper industry in mind.

So should it happen?

Yes. It should.

Will it happen?

Perhaps.

That’s a scary ‘perhaps’, isn’t it? When you consider what’s at stake, you could be forgiven for getting more than jittery about our chances. Like all bail outs, it would take millions. And can we justify millions of taxpayers money to publications that do things like this? We may not miss the Daily Express, but I would resent any plan that chose certain newspapers over others. Every newspaper has a right to exist. While we could perhaps sell the benefits of having the likes of The Times bailed out and saved (not that I’m suggesting it’s in trouble), it would be nigh-on impossible to convince the masses that taxpayer’s money should be spent saving the Daily Star.

Because here’s the killer: If people wanted to save the Daily Star, they’d buy it. Same with every newspaper out there.

And think of the consequences. Suddenly all newspapers would face the same kind of scrutiny that the BBC comes under every day. If a newspaper publishes a story that people disagree with — the public would have more weight behind them knowing it was their cash spent saving it. Imagine The Sun and Hillsborough happening all over again?

A bail out is akin to a mother slipping a son a tenner a few weeks before pay day. It’s borrowed, yes, but probably won’t get paid back any time soon. But the son needed that money and things will pick up once pay day arrives, so not to worry.

Bailed out banks are — fingers crossed — waiting for that pay day. When the economy recovers, they’ll be able to go back to their lucrative money-making selves.

But can newspapers?  Probably not, no. Newspapers were in trouble well before the credit crunch took hold. There is no evidence to suggest it’ll be any better when all this mess is over. A newspaper bail out pot would not be bottomless and it would soon run out, leaving us right where we are now.

Polly Toynbee wrote about this in yesterday’s Guardian. Craig McGill has a decent dissection of her main points here. She’s sticking up for newspapers, as you’d expect, but with, as Craig agrees, blatent snobbery, she clouds her very good points. In Polly’s bail out, we save ‘quality’ papers like the Guardian, but ditch rubbishier ones like the Express. I’ll admit I’m not its biggest fan, but to steal a quote, I’ll defend its right to exist to the death.

My two pence? The newspaper industry needs help. It’s on life-support, and the only way it can be saved is by outside intervention. Journalists of old would spin in their graves knowing that the free press is reaching out to the government for a hand out, but it’s for the greater good.

But let’s not see that money wasted on newsprint.

Money should be spent on giving regional news outlets a proper online presence. It should be spent on equipment for local audio/video. It should be spent on allowing every regional newsroom to be right in the heart of the town it covers — not in some soulless newspaper factory in a big city. It should be spent on giving regionals better individual controls over their web output. It should be spent on making the coder and the graphics person as important to the news operation as the reporters, subs and editors. It should be spent on community managers, whose sole job is to reach out to readers in a way that goes far beyond a drab letters page.

A bail out is needed. But this is no bail out for newspapers — it’s a bail out for journalism.

We have to convince the British public that what they’ll be getting in return for their money will be noble and dignified. Like the bankers who will have learned the hard way for risky loans, the press needs to learn the hard way about bad journalism. Paparazzi garbage has no place in the bail out plan.

We need to become PR people. We have no excuse getting this wrong. Hell — we tell PRs how badly they’re doing their jobs all the time. Let’s show them how it’s done.

Without a powerful press, our country will suffer. But ask Joe Public whether they’ll miss newspapers and I think we all know that he wouldn’t. We need to stop making this argument about newspapers, and start making it about democracy and freedom. Only then will we win the psychological battle with the public mindset.

Good luck everyone.

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Posted in Comment, Newspapers, Regional, Tabloids, The BBC, The Future, The Web

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Video: The end of the Rocky Mountain News

March 3rd, 2009


Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.

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Posted in Comment, Multimedia, Newspapers, The Future, The Web, main, video journalism

The benefit of hindsight: Saving New Zealand’s newspapers

February 23rd, 2009

They say hindsight is a glorious thing. When looking back, everyone can be an expert. Should have done this, shouldn’t have done that.

If you could go back in time, let’s say five years, and set out a new strategy for a failing newspaper, what would you do?

Paywall? More blogs? Less blogs? Fewer editions?

Here’s a market where you can put the benefit of hindsight into real action: New Zealand.

As Jim Tucker writes, the Kiwi press has thus far dodged the slaughter of the ever-changing media world, keeping sales generally intact.

But that’s beginning to change. Jim’s figures — from the NZ ABCs — suggest all is not well:

While the downward trend shown in Audit Bureau of Circulation figures (about 4% over the past 18 months) is steady compared to the slaughter overseas, some of the bigger players are taking heavy hits.

The biggest, the NZ Herald, has dropped 7.1% (13,622) to 177,391 in the period mid-year 2007 to December, 2008.

The other major national player, the Wellington-based Dominion Post, has also taken a hit, down 6.2% to 90,279.

But these are ’safe’ figures, rather than the industry-defining declines we’ve had to deal with in the UK. So there’s still time.

Knowing what we know now, what would you do about it?

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Posted in Comment, New Zealand, Newspapers, The Future, The Web, main

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NUJ follow up: I’m still not convinced

February 12th, 2009

I’ve been doing some thinking about this whole NUJ thing. My post the other night reads very ranty — indeed, I guess it is very ranty — but I’m pleased to see that many readers of this blog agree with what I’m getting at.

And, from the defence, I received some rather predictable responses against my argument.

I’ll start with this point, from Joanna Geary (formerly Birmingham Post, now The Times):

I have much sympathy with your argument, although £13 a month for legal protection may be worth it and it is for that reason I am still an NUJ member.

Of everything I received (and blimey, there was a LOT) this was perhaps the most useful. £13 a month, as Joanna says, is very good to get legal protection.I can’t argue with that.

But it’s comments like this from ‘Chris’ (no link given) that remind me why I wrote that post:

But you wait till you’re staring down the barrel of redundancy – through no fault of your own, just because it happens that your team is being shut down.

Wait till you’re being forced to accept alternative work in a place you don’t want to live or in an area you have no interest in.

Wait till you’re summoned to meetings for a “quick chat” and end up facing four senior managers using classic intimidation tactics.

Then you’ll wish you had a union rep by your side to help fight your corner.

It’s always good to have a union behind you if you’re facing redundancy. Now, I underqualify myself here, as not only have I never faced redundancy, but I work for a corporation that is arguably more ’stable’. In other words, licence fees are still coming in. While not immune, we are safer.

But my issue is that while the NUJ are fighting a corner, it’s all rather pointless. Take this recent example of an NUJ ‘fight’:

The NUJ has strongly condemned the decision of Independent Newspapers to enforce three redundancies at The Kerryman newspaper in Tralee.

Séamus said: “This proposal represents a direct attack on the editorial heart of one of the oldest and most significant newspapers in Ireland. The inevitable consequence would be a poorer newspaper, which would not adequately reflect the community life of Kerry.”

At a meeting with the union yesterday, management announced its intention to make three journalists redundant. The NUJ chapel held an emergency meeting at which management was urged to rescind the decision, which staff say will have a detrimental effect on The Kerryman and Corkman titles.

My issue with this goes back to my ‘SAVE THE JOURNALISTS!” argument. The NUJ is pouring its efforts into protesting job cuts, when really they should be coming together — as a union — to offer more productive aid to their members. Advice on training, re-skilling and re-deployment.

Ed Hart’s comment:

As an objective observer on this one, I have had good and bad experiences of unions. If I had to sum up what I would want a union to do and be, it is to work on behalf of its members. The problem is that some unions lose touch with what this means, and see themselves as lobbyists, or big movers and shakers; when in fact their remit remains low key, but essential to those who really should matter – their members. Do they occasionally forget who the customer is, and what their customer wants?

Helps me counter this argument from ‘thatstheway’ (uh huh, uh huh, I like it!):

Someone so self-consciously hip like you could have some input into its digital media strategy if you weren’t so busy doing precisely what you accuse the NUJ of doing all the time, which is complaining, and making digital media sound like some big deal that’s going to require your special skills alone.

I feel I could contribute with the NUJ no more actively than I could to ASLEF, the train drivers union. Why? I feel I don’t have a connection with their outlook in any shape of form.

I’m all for protecting the strength of print. By doing so, we uphold the values that have made our profession truly great. But I’m also aware that, like the industry, a union has to change and adapt. Sometimes there are battles that cannot be won by standing outside a building with a placard.

I think it’s time for the NUJ to take a step back and reflect.

It needs to swallow a bit of pride and admit that just because journalism is online, doesn’t make it bad. In fact, it can make it very, very good.

It needs to stop posting videos like this, which show not only a devestating lack of understanding about online media, but also an aggressive “We’re trained and you WILL employ us” attitude that we just can’t afford to have anymore.

Maybe what we need to do is knock our collective heads together and search for ideas of how the NUJ can modernise and become the forward-thinking union we all need it to be.

Because here’s the thing: I want to join the NUJ. One commenter on my last post accused me of having no sense of solidarity which, and I hope my friends would vouch for this, couldn’t be further from the truth. If the NUJ can bring itself up to speed, I would love to get stuck in and get my hands dirty.

I believe in the future of journalism. I believe that journalists will be as important in 50 years than they have ever been. I’m preparing myself, and training myself, for a world without newsprint. It’s time the NUJ got ready too.

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Posted in Blogs, Comment, Debate, Multimedia, My Work, Newspapers, Regional, Student Journalism, The BBC, The Future, The Web, main

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Join the NUJ? Why?

February 10th, 2009

A colleague suggested to me today that I renew my NUJ membership. I’ve let mine lapse since my student days — the £10 or so I spent for a tacky piece of laminated plastic could have been better spent on, well, anything.

At the time, I was promised not only huge benefits of being a card holder — entrance to events, and so on; never happened — but also representation. A union that would stand up for my rights as a student journalist.

But, after getting this promotional bullshit fed to me at during an early lecture at university, I haven’t seen nor heard a NUJ rep since.

And not for want of trying, either.

Last year I did a placement at a well-known media company. I was, for want of a better phrase, taken the piss out of. They wanted me to do a job that was not only away from the area I wanted to work, but was away from the company’s BUILDING. Instead, I was logging in a ten minute drive away. No thanks — I’m not paying £25 a day (they don’t pay expenses, naturally) to offer free labour.

(That said, once the matter was resolved, it turned into a very valuable placement which has lead to me making many good friends and career contacts.)

At the time, I emailed the NUJ for advice. As a student member, I asked, what rights do I have as part of this Union?

No reply. My £10 didn’t even earn me an email offering advice. No phone call, nothing. They couldn’t even be bothered to link me to a relevant part of their website for help. Which is a shame — because they do have a guide for this sort of thing (PDF). But try following their tips and insist on being paid a minimum wage for your placement — you’ll have a big red boot mark on your arse before you’d even sat down.

More recently — in my quest for NUJ help — after seeing several adverts for unpaid internships at websites that were making plenty of money, I emailed the NUJ to ask them if there’s anything they/I/we could do about it.

No reply.

Let me ask you this: Is the NUJ really standing up for journalists?

The answer for me is a very firm and direct no.

The NUJ is a cowardly union, hiding away in offices in which they wish were still furnished with typewriters and a smoking room. Their magazine, ‘Journalist’, is symbolic of their attitude to the changing media world. Only very recently has it become available online. As a downloadable PDF, that is. A pain to download, a pain to read — and completely anti-Google. Journalists looking for its words of ‘wisdom’ wouldn’t find them too easily.

Now when I say hiding — I don’t mean they’re not out there campaigning. They are. Very hard, in fact, with chapels springing up and making a lot of noise in places like the FT and in unison against the Birmingham media hub.

What I actually mean by hiding  is that they are cowering from the future. Here’s the NUJ, plowing money and effort into saying “STOP THE CUTBACKS!”… and then dealing with the blow with yet more anger and disbelief when it happens anyway.

If I were a member of the NUJ, I’d demand it help me as a struggling journalist. Where can I re-skill? How can the NUJ help me choose courses to enhance my online skills?

Simply: It can’t. Look at the diary — what do you see? Gloom — print this, rate cuts that. I’m not saying we don’t need meetings to discuss our rights in the workplace, but like the newspapers making the cuts, we are FIGHTING A LOSING BATTLE.

If the NUJ is really out there to act as a service for all working journalists, it needs to wake up. It needs to get over its fascination with tradition. It needs to pull its head from the sand, stand up and come up with a plan to really help those in need.

Right now, the only noise I hear from the NUJ is complaining.

“Save the journalists!” they’ll scream.

“But how we will survive? We can’t afford them,” say the newspapers.

“Well, er… we don’t know. Just SAVE THE JOURNALISTS, ok?”

Useless.

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Posted in Newspapers, Student Journalism, The Future, The Web, main

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Reports of her death are greatly exaggerated

January 26th, 2009

Without wanting to seem flippant over this tragic story, I couldn’t help notice something very strange on on the Daily Mail site today.

Headline: Miss World finalist who had hands and feet amputated after being hit by infection dies

Other than being a very good piece of SEO, this headline is also very matter of fact. The Miss World finalist has died.

And then here’s the first paragraph:

A two-time Miss World finalist whose feet and hands were amputated after contracting a drug-resistant infection has died.

Very straight forward there.

Like most Daily Mail stories, there are comments a plenty (probably down to that great SEO). But something about the comments on this story in particular struck me as a little bit, well, strange:

My heart goes to the beautiful girl, what a tradegy! Praying for her speedy recovery!
Leila, Gibraltar, 22/1/2009 16:11

And another:

Beauty is only in the eyes of the beholder. How she fights this and pulls through will show her true beauty, and that’s the real beautiful and strong person everyone will see; not just what’s on the outside, but the fight inside too. I bet she can do it!

And there’s loads more.

Of course, the reasonable explanation for this is that the original story told of a girl fighting for her life. The comments came in. Then, sadly, the girl lost that fight — and so the story was altered. But now the comments come across as rather haunting. I’ve stuck a picture of the comments on Flickr in the event of them being removed.

Presumably the Mail would have wanted to keep the most up-to-date information on one article page, rather than several new articles whenever a story develops. That makes sense. But surely a development as serious as the death of the subject shouldn’t just be edited?

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Posted in Comment, Ethics, Newspapers, Tabloids, The Web

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Video Journalism will save newspapers in 2009

January 15th, 2009

In the past twelve months we’ve seen the amount of people watching online video go through the roof. But, unlike the YouTube boom that potentially signalled the end for professional journalism (citizen this, citizen that!), this new round of video habits has one crucial factor: length.

The success of the BBC iPlayer has shown that people are prepared to watch video online for a long time. Half an hour or more. And, in the same way the blogs took off once people were used to writing and conversing on the web, I believe that long-form online video will have a similar such boom, where masses consider half an hour spent watching something on their PC a good use of their time.

What’s more, sites such as the brilliant Vimeo show the eagerness of viewers to lap up some full-screen, HD-quality stuff. There’s no sitting around for big downloads, or trying to keep your eyes strained on an awful, grainy clip so tiny you could put a stamp over it.

Video journalism has finally come of age.

As I write this, the Guardian has no less than three pieces of video on its homepage. The NYTimes led with video earlier today — and has a HUGE video section. So too does the Telegraph. Soon, I’ll predict we’ll see video blossoming into the primary content on newspaper sites. Lead headlines always complimented with a video.

Why? Because for the reader, it’s easily digestible, engaging and interesting.

But more importantly, for the publisher, it could prove to be the money-maker they have long been searching for

Many have written about David Carr’s ludicrious statements suggesting an ‘iTunes for news’. Most are saying it’ll never work — and I agree. Why pay to read news on NYTimes, when I can read the same news in the LA Times? Or the Chicago Tribune? Or ANYWHERE?

But wait a second. What if there was a way to make your news better than everyone else? What if there was a way you could cover the same stories, but cover them so well and in such a way that people come flocking to your site; not because they can’t read it in other places, but because they really want to get your coverage.

Video journalism offers this chance. It doesn’t allow for lifted quotes, for recycled copy or for blind churnalism. It promotes good, inventive journalism.

And the reward? Advertising. Loads of it. Think of it like this: When I was in New Zealand, I regularly logged on to the BBC website to catch up. Of course, being abroad, I got BBC.com, the international, advertising-laden edition. When clicking to watch a short (<30 seconds) clip, I was presented with an advert.

I clicked away. The advert was almost as long as the clip.

But on the other hand, when I’m at home, I watch a lot of 4-on-demand, Channel 4’s catch-up service. Before and during the show, there’ll be adverts a plenty. Do I turn away? No! Because in a half an hour show, two minutes of adverts is more than acceptable. Just like in traditional media, it’s all about ratio. 30 min programme = 1 break. 1 hour programme = 3 breaks. A film = 30 minutes of trailers. Or more if you go to Cineworld.

Video journalism finally solves all the problems:

- How to stay unique — no-one has your pictures

- How to save money — no big production projects here, folks. One man, a camera and a laptop

- How to make money — people don’t mind watching adverts when it comes to long content

In time I’ll be posting my plans for how I aim to get stuck in to video journalism. I drawing inspiration from the likes of David Dunkley Gyimah, and hopefully by utilising my job at the BBC as a means for getting training an experience.

Over the next year, me and a friend will be testing the water. Baby steps, if you will, with the aim of selling two pieces of video journalism to the world’s press. Two isn’t a big number, but it idoesn’t make it any less of a task. All in good time.

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Posted in Blogs, Comment, Multimedia, My Work, New Zealand, Newspapers, Social Networking, TV, The BBC, The Future, The Web, video journalism

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Johann Hari on exploited interns and workies

January 14th, 2009

The Independent’s Johann Hari has written a great piece blasting unpaid internships. I agree with every point he makes:

This is happening all over Britain’s professions. The wealthy writer (and self-confessed “pushy mum”) Rachel Johnson is admirably honest about it. She says: “The truth is getting a job depends almost entirely on getting work experience, which depends almost entirely on whom you or your family knows … This back-scratching cycle of privilege is the middle-class Circle of Life. So it’s all jolly unfair, frankly.”

Who does this cheat? Johnson says: “All those students who support themselves through university, only to find out when they leave that the glittering prizes have already been handed out, at a ceremony they never knew was taking place, to the undergraduate with the best connections.”

This isn’t just bad for the people who are shut out. It is bad for the professions – and the country. Talent is distributed throughout the population – but we are only picking from a tiny tier, based on their parents’ bank balance. Imagine if the England football team was made up of the sons of the 1966 winners and their mates. How would they perform? Imagine if films could be cast using only the children of actors. How many talents would we exclude?

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Posted in Newspapers, Student Journalism

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The Guardian in Katine: An analysis

January 14th, 2009

Say what you will about the Guardian, but you have to admire this effort: Katine, it starts with a village.

The idea: partnering up with Barclays and AMREF to raise awareness and — don’t forget this bit — lots of money to help develop a village in Uganda. For more info, check our their site.

Very brave. This is a potentially boring story. Not because the subject isn’t important — of course not — but from a story-to-story point of view, there will be little going on. This is a story that will develop over time, hopefully leading to improved life for the villagers. But, even if it is a success, it will never provide a headline grabbing scoop — such is the nature of charity.

The project was the subject of discussion last night at a Polis Media event. Read some very interesting — and honest — accounts of the success of the Katine project from Charlies Beckett (Director of Polis) and also from Journalism.co.uk’s Laura Oliver.

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Posted in Newspapers, The Web

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